


Flowers in the Desert

by salvadore



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Continuity What Continuity, Established Relationship, M/M, Past Violence Mention, Tattoos, Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-08-13 05:24:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20168866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salvadore/pseuds/salvadore
Summary: "You wanted to do the arm design today, right?” she asks."Yeah, the gladiolas," Jason says. He traces his fingers down the long, single stem of flowers the same way he’d drawn imaginary versions of it on his arm to describe the flowers to Dick.--Jason gets a tattoo.





	Flowers in the Desert

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Salmonellagogo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salmonellagogo/gifts).

It’s turning to evening when Jason hits the streets. Deep shadows fall from towering skyscrapers and creep from the mouths of alleyways to give way to the darkness of night. It's a warning for the last straggling Gothamites to get home.

In the heart of Gotham where Catwoman is queen, the streets are almost empty. No one pays any mind to the young man in the blue sweater who jogs by.

It’s a rare night without patrol for Jason, and it feels clandestine to be moving through B’s city unmasked after sunset. He's hyper-aware of the borrowed clothes on his back, and that awareness makes them feel heavier than Kevlar. They’re uncomfortable with the weight of the new experience.

The clothes are Dick's, and they fit, if barely. The sweater is tighter than he’d wear - not broad enough in the shoulders, and clinging at his waist. He had to cuff the jeans so they wouldn’t look too short. He’d been hard pressed to abandon the safety of the nest Dick had made on the couch. It had felt unthinkable to leave for his own apartment for clothing when Dick kept leaning in for soft kisses. Even though their breath had been terrible, and saying so had made Dick laugh against his lips. Jason hadn’t wanted to leave the warm weight of Dick’s embrace until he had to.

Jason jogs across the street before the city bus pulls forward. The breeze sweeping in is cold with the impending winter. The gutters and storm drains are red with the dearth of fallen leaves; the last gasp of autumn littering the roads.

There’s benefits to stealing Dick’s clothes, though. When Jason pulls the hood up against the breeze, the fabric smells faintly of the cologne Dick sometimes wears. It's a warm, musky scent that Jason usually has to press his face to the nape of Dick’s neck to catch. The familiar smell soothes him the anxiety skating across his skin.

He hops off the curb, checking the dark avenue as he goes. He’s getting ever closer to his destination. A tattoo shop deep in Selina’s territory.

‘Poison Ink’ glows in pink, cursive letters from the window of the storefront. Dark green curtains drawn across the window bar any view from the street. He wonders again if the location was intentional. Nestled safe as it is in an area that everyone recognizes as protected. Perhaps Selina happened to miss this shop opening so close to her home, though it’s unlikely. She wouldn't let ‘Poison Ink’ grow in her end of Gotham without hearing about it.

There’s no one here - not when the business is usually closed on Sundays. Jason doesn’t pause as he reaches for the door. He's expected. The door is unlocked, and he pushes through into an empty front room. Inside the walls are a subtle pink. The chairs and reception desk are unstained wood. There’s another deep green curtain separating the back half of the room, where the real work happens, from walk-ins. Against the wall, behind the empty reception desk, is a trellis covered with blooming ivy.

The plant seems to shiver as the door slips shut behind Jason.

“You found your way back, little bird,” Pamela Isley doesn’t mean it as a question. She smiles at Jason, holding the curtain out of the way as she comes in from the back. “Come on through, I have us all set up.”

It had been a coincidence: discovering that Poison Ivy had disappeared from Arkham, and Pamela Isley had become a tattoo artist in retirement. Jason had stumbled upon the shop on a bad night where everything had gone wrong. It started with a murder two blocks from where he’d been patrolling and nearly ended when Black Mask’s men shot him down. He’d been saved from bleeding out by the Kevlar and the force of the first bullet knocking him down a fire escape.

Isley had found him in the alley. She’d dragged him inside. And hadn’t said a thing.

It hadn't taken much digging to learn she'd been quietly released from Arkham Asylum on “good behavior." By all evidence, she had kept it up as she eased into a civilian life. So, Jason hadn’t said anything either.

Jason takes his sweater off and balls it up in his arms. He has the passing thought that if he puts it down he might forget it here. The feeling of loss, as small as a pinprick but still there, is new.

Jason used to lead an unmaterialistic life. Aside from what he needed to do his job, he didn’t want to keep things that couldn’t be abandoned. He wasn’t saying it was a League of Assassins habit or a personal hang up.

That was before though. Before: grief, and screaming, and rooftops in Blüdhaven. Dick had been a wreck when Jason had come back. And they'd fallen together like broken pieces meant to be together. It was pure magnetism that compelled Jason to follow Dick back to Gotham.

It’d be easy to blame his growing sentimentality on Dick. But Jason had chosen to kiss him after that terrible night against Black Mask. He had dragged himself bleeding to Dick's side. Jason had chosen to share Dick's bed most nights since. It had been the same as choosing to have things worth missing. Things worth losing.

“You wanted to do the arm design today, right?” she asks. She has the designs out on the table. The one she means is the smaller of two ideas Jason had brought to her.

"Yeah, the gladiolas," he says. He traces his fingers down the long, single stem of flowers. The design starts with three soft buds at the top of the stem, in various state of bloom. At the bottom rests one fully open flower and the end of the stem.

Isley taps one pointed, red nail against the flower and says, “I still think a little red would do.”

They talked about doing it in color. Isley had suggested either reds and oranges or, purples and blues. But Jason was afraid those palettes would look like blood or bruises even dressed up as flowers.

“The goal is to cover up wounds, not make metaphorical ones," he reminds her.

He traces his fingers over the design again. It felt fitting, asking Isley to put permanent flowers on his skin.

She’s careful when she runs the antiseptic wipe over the long scar line on his bicep that the tattoo will cover. Looking at it, clean and shining red still all these years later, Jason thinks it’s an ugly thing. He’d gotten it as a kid, long before he’d become Robin. He’d been cutting through Crime Alley’s back streets and climbing fences because nothing would get in his way. Barb wire had torn deep into his under arm one day and across his skin. And he’d been too young. Hadn’t the knowledge he had now with how to heal it. Or the people in his life who would want to help.

No one knew why the Lazarus pit hadn’t washed it away with the many others it erased. Though Jason had his theories and fears. He has chapters of pain still on his skin, but only the ones whose creation he remembers with vivid clarity.

Isley lays the stencil out so the stem of the gladiola lies along the length of the scar. The full bloom flower is the widest part, meant to cover the worst of scar - where the barb wire had first caught his skin. Watching the black of her gloves, and how gentle she is with his skin, Jason can't help but remember Dick's face the other morning. There’d been a quiet sadness as he ran his fingers over it. When Dick pressed his lips to it, his face had been drawn in concern. He often struggled with the words to ask for the details of the parts of his life Jason had lived without him.

Not that Jason has ever made it easy. His stomach fills with gravel when he tries to explain to Dick the way being Robin made him feel. How can he get the stories out when Dick traces careful fingers over scars he earned under Talia’s tutelage?

Running her gloved fingers across it on more time, Isley turns a smile on him. And says, “Get a look at it in the mirror, and tell me what you think.”

Jason turns his arm and watches how the stem moves from the small flex of muscle.

“What was it you called them?”

“Sword lilies,” she replies.

Jason exhales, and some of the nervousness shakes loose. That was what had sold him on the design when she had shown him sketches. It made him flush at how cheesy it was -- wanting springtime flowers with a weapon’s name. When he had told Dick, though, it had felt right. As if he was making something beautiful from the past. But also using it to protect himself. He could visualize it permanently on his skin as he’d drawn imaginary versions of it on his arm to describe the flowers to Dick.

It must have made sense. Or shown on his face how important it was. Because Dick had brought gladiolas home from the market that week. It was a sweet gesture even if they’d both been at a loss to discover the flowers grew in lengths of two to five feet.

He looks down at the design from above. It feels like the top blossom is facing him too. As if he’s the sun.

“It looks good. I trust you,” he says, and means it.

Isley is gentle. Before she starts she says, “Let me know if you need a break.”

Her machine is quieter than Jason remembers from his last tattoo. He can’t hear the sounds of Gotham from here, but the music she put on is a nice distraction. The press and buzz of the machine sends vibrations through his arm. It makes the joints in his wrist and hands buzz too. He has to refrain from clenching his fists when the pain hits too much. It must show on his face though, because in those moments Isley asks, “How are you feeling?” and gives him a second’s reprieve.

She wipes his skin clean gently, clearing some of the blood and excess ink to see the stencil. There’s the smell of antiseptic, but it doesn’t remind Jason of terrible times. Her focus is on the tattoo, and Jason feels comfortable watching her. Her skin is still a green tone though it’s almost a pallor hue beneath her vibrant red hair piled high on her head, tucked up in such a way that it defies gravity. Isley’s eyes flick toward him beneath her reading glasses -- and that’s a revelation somehow that she needs reading glasses -- and she smiles at him.

”Are you alright, Jason?”

He doesn’t know if he feels alright; it feels like he’s feeling too much all at once. He’s abuzz with the endorphins flooding his body as it deals with the process. But below that he feels split open, and the memory of how he got the scar is slipping free. Her thumb runs over the design. Cool air brushes over his wet arm and makes him reflexively shiver. How does he put it into words that it feels like he’s closing a chapter?

”Why tattoos?” he asks, instead. “After everything, I mean.”

”After years of botany-based criminal enterprise? ” she asks as she fans the design with a paper towel. She’s still smiling. “Believe it or not, I considered this a long time ago. Before I was Ivy.”

She turns the gun back on. Before she starts, she contemplates his skin. Then there’s the pressure of her arm on his. She carefully holds him still as she puts the needle back to his skin.

”I always had a passion for creation,” she says with a wink. And really, how many times had she tried to turn Gotham into a plant sanctuary? Softer, she says, “When I had my freedom again, I thought should try. It’s not everyday we get a second chance.”

Jason doesn’t know how to respond to her honesty. It settles on him with a familiar weight. Sometimes when he watches Dick he gets this same feeling -- the pressure of possibility.

”There’s more to the story than that, but we’re almost done, Jason,” Isley says. “You’re doing great.”

* * *

Jason doesn’t go home after. He breaks into Dick’s apartment from the fire-escape.

It’s so expected that it’s almost routine. He doesn’t so much as flinch when the window opens up in front of his hands before he can finish picking the lock. Jason grins up at Dick, lighthearted and light-headed from the tattoo. He sticks his head through the now open window while Dick tries to look exasperated, hand on his hips and everything. It lasts about a second before he breaks out in a grin too.

Dick says, “I just ordered take-out.”

Jason swats the hand Dick offers so he can show off for once. Not that he’ll ever admit he’s showing off, he’s taking that to the grave. He does a somersault through the window, shoulders and knees tucked tight to avoid the heavy flower stalks of the gladiolas bending toward him. Dick had to borrow a vase from a neighbor that would hold them. They’re bright yellow and makes it feel like spring in the apartment.

On his feet, Jason turns toward the kitchen, looking through what Dick’s ordered as he bites on his lower lip. Dick’s at his back, laughing already when Jason says, “You have the shittiest taste in food,” because Dick’s ordered a pizza with just about anything that’s ever been put on a pizza on it. Pepperoncinis, pineapple, and red onion for a start.

“Maybe if you’d called to say you were coming back you would’ve gotten a vote on the food,” Dick teases.

The way he says it is soft and sincere. He could be talking about the new Titans, or the last time he saw Clark. It’s the same way he’d sounded when he’d tossed a key to Jason and said, _“You can use that instead of always coming in through the window,”_ even though they were Nightwing and Red Hood. Even though they’d just taken down a mugger who’d been a little jumpy with his gun and Dick had been shaky from exhaustion.

As if Jason hadn’t come back from the dead, and tried to destroy Batman and Gotham. It had taken a long time for Jason to believe Dick could love him anyway.

Jason doesn’t like using the key. He’d spent so many months thinking about throwing it away. It’s still too heavy, and it means too much. He once stood on the docks and imagined watching it sink to the bottom of Gotham’s sorry excuse for a bay. Now he’s afraid to lose it. The list of those things, things he’s afraid to lose, is getting long enough to make him anxious.

“Where’d the fun be in that, Dickie?” Jason asks, taking a big and only slightly spiteful bite of the biggest slice. Tries not to think about how they got here – a little more aiming to maim instead of kill and a little more of his nightly patrol spent chasing Dick across the city. And only one broken arm, Dick’s from an accident during his day job.

Jason watches Dick eat, makes mocking remarks where applicable and doesn’t do anything to stop Dick kicking at his feet after they move to the sofa. There are monstrously large elephants haunting every room they share. It’s still delicate and Dick has a tendency to step on landmines Jason didn’t even know were lying in wait within his psyche. Like when his gaze lingers too long on Jason’s scars and it makes Jason itch with self-consciousness. But they’re trying.

The nightly news report is winding down on the TV, but Jason knows there will be comedy reruns on next. So he holds his tongue on reminding Dick that relaxing means at least one night off from worrying about the city.

Dick licks his lips, and there’s a flicker of his gaze toward Jason. He stares steadfastly at the TV as he asks, “Is that my sweater?”

“Oh,” Jason says. “Yeah, I thought it was going to be colder than it was.”

He doesn’t know why he’s making an excuse. But he’s not ready to admit to Dick that he wanted the familiar comfort.

“I steal your clothes all the time, Jason,” Dick teases like he understands anyway. He, thankfully, keeps his eyes on the TV when he says it. “Turnabout is only fair play.”

He takes a huge bite of pizza, and Jason considers kissing him despite the chunk of red onion he knows Dick just put in his mouth.

Jason must stare too long because Dick asks, ”What are you thinking about?” He takes another huge bite of pizza before he asks, though, and finishes the slice off. He’s talking through a mouthful of food, and it shouldn’t be endearing.

“You’re gross, Grayson,” Jason tells him. But he’s wrapping his arms around Dick’s shoulders and pulling him in. Dick leans into him easily, and tips his head back against Jason’s shoulder. Then he opens his mouth and shows off the mess of cheese and veggies to Jason’s disgust, and chews it loudly.

”You love me,” Dick says between swallowing his food, and settling his cheek against Jason’s shoulder.

”Do I?” Jason asks as he wraps his arms around Dick waist. He pulls Dick in until he is resting against Jason’s chest, and hopes if he holds him tight he won’t shake with the weight of those words.

Dick is warm where Jason slips his hand under his shirt. His fingers brush against the hair at Dick’s navel, and Dick shivers in his arms. Heat coils in Jason’s stomach. He runs his fingers over Dick’s skin again, hoping to get him to do it again.

”How much longer do you need to wear the wrap?” Dick hums. He has his eyes closed and the TV is all but forgotten.

“Few more minutes.”

“How does it look?”

”You’ll see it soon.” Jason steals a chance to stare at Dick’s face without Dick teasing him for it. His long, dark eye lashes and the soft bruising from lack of sleep. He needed a night off as much as Jason did. The color is back in his cheeks, and his cheekbones aren’t as sharp as they were back in Blüdhaven.

A commercial for Vicki Vale’s new daytime talk show starts. Jason reaches for the remote, his hand applying gentle pressure to Dick’s waist before he bends them both forward. Jason turns the TV off just before Vale says anything. And then the apartment is quiet. There’s the hiss of heater, and the ambient Gotham sounds coming from the window.

Jason presses his cheek to Dick’s temple. Dick presses his hand over Jason’s, lacing their fingers together as he squeezes his hand reassuringly.

“It looks good,” Jason says the words against Dick’s skin. His lips brushing the soft hair at Dick’s temple. “It suits the sunflowers.”

Dick turns in his arms, lips seeking out and catching Jason’s own in a soft kiss. Jason moves with him. He slides his hand up, under Dick’s shirt and against his warm skin to his chest. There are scars there too -- ones that have gone undisclosed. But he knows them by his fingers and his lips.

Jason hooks Dick into his lap with his free arm around Dick’s waist and hold him there. His thumb brushes softly across Dick’s nipple, and it makes Dick’s back arch. His thighs flex against Jason’s. How many times has Dick wrapped his legs around someone’s body and used their strength with momentum to twist them to the ground, Jason wonders. He feels them tighten, clutching him for a moment. It makes him shudder with the thrill of it. Dick’s tongue is in his mouth, and his fingers are making a gentle caress down the soft skin of Jason’s throat. Heat coils in Jason’s gut.

Dick covers Jason’s hand over his shirt. It stops Jason from pressing his nail teasingly against Dick’s nipple. Instead, Dick clasps their hands over his heart. Against Jason’s lips, Dick exhales a moan. He slips his tongue in Jason’s mouth, and arches closer.

When Dick was young, Harvey Dent shot him and it left a starburst scar splashed across his left shoulder. The bullet broke his collarbone, and sometimes when it gets cold Dick runs his fingers across the muscle there in an unintentional gesture.

Jason used to do the same thing to the gunshot scar on his left side under his ribs. Sometimes he used to scratch at it to remind himself it was there. He had to stop after he had John Oakes -- the tattoo man -- cover it in sunflowers. Oakes technique had been nothing like Isley’s. He’d used a coil tattoo machine that punched out sound and the ink. The shading and color had hurt, but it had been freeing for Jason to take control of one of the scars the Joker had left him.

Dick and Jason kiss and undress slowly, and drag against each other until they’re both flushed and bruise-lipped. Until Jason tips Dick back against the blankets on the couch, his hand following the path of Dick’s long arched body as he sinks, loose-limbed under him. His cock is flush and hard against his thigh, and he’s staring at Jason from under his eye lashes. It’s a flash of blue, against wide pupils. His skin is pink and warm and his fingers catch at Jason’s hip.

Jason straddles his hips and sit back to unwrap his tattoo while Dick watches. The fresh air is a relief on it. His skin is red and the ink is still raised but there the flowers are. Permanent and solid on his arm. He turns in the light so Dick can see it.

There’s the pressure of thumbs running comforting patterns at his hips. Dick trying to keep from reaching out to touch the tattoo the way he always does with Jason’s sunflowers.

Jason arches his back the way Dick would if he were riding him, and it gives Dick the view of the two bright sunflowers on his side, all the way up the gladiolas on his left arm. Sucking his lips between his teeth, Jason waits for Dick’s consideration.

Fingers press up his stomach and move to cover the sunflowers. Dick’s thumb brushes his lower rib, and he can’t help it if his cock twitches. Breathing is labored, and his stomach heaves with the air he’s trying to pull in as he waits for Dick to speak.

When he does, the words come out breathlessly, “You’re growing a garden from your skin, Jason.”

Jason tries to downplay it.

“Don’t be cheesy, Grayson,” he replies. His voice is rough. “They’re just tattoos.”

Pause. “I don’t think you could grow anything with Crime Alley soil, anyway.”

Dick exhales, and the breath shakes out of him. His hands hold Jason fast where he is.

“They’re beautiful,” Dick says.

Jason shudders again. Over Dick’s shoulder, he can see the yellow blooms leaning against the window. The light from inside makes the window opaque. He can see the line of his naked body as he keeps holding, keeps showing off for Dick. He can almost make out the yellow ink on his own skin. He thinks of the key he has, and how it's tucked safely in his bedside table drawer. That he has a bedside table with a draw in Dick's apartment should be a shock, but Dick is generous. Jason has room in the closet, even though he hasn't brought clothes over yet. Dick bought him flowers. And Jason is trying too.

“You’re beautiful, Jason,” Dick says. He takes Jason’s hand and pulls it in to kiss his knuckles. “I love you.”

Jason pushes past the gravel scratching at his throat. There could be a crushing weight on his chest made of the ways they've been hurt, and hurt each other to get here. But Dick's hand is squeezing his own, and his eyes are on only Jason. He is solid and patient -- steady as he's always was in his pursuit to bring Jason home.

Jason's chest is split open again. This is a chapter beginning

Jason says, "I love you too."

**Author's Note:**

> My endless, crying gratitude to Empires goes here after reveals. Because you were an amazing cheerleader!! Thank you so much for your edits, help, and hand-holding. What would I do without you? 
> 
> Remaining mistakes were, of course, my own. Thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed it ♥


End file.
